Protests Rage After Venezuela Refuses to Recount

Capriles not accepting 'illegitimate ' result

(Newser)
–
Police in Caracas fired tear gas to disperse furious opposition supporters after Venezuelan electoral authorities decided there would be no recount of the presidential election result, despite Nicolas Maduro's slender margin of victory. Opposition leader Henrique Capriles insists that he, not Hugo Chavez's anointed heir, is the real winner and he has called for his supporters to hold more protests today, while Maduro's supporters plan rallies of their own, Reuters reports.

"We are not going to ignore the will of the people. We believe we won," Capriles said, urging authorities to not confirm the "illegitimate" election result until alleged voting irregularities are investigated. "We want this problem resolved peacefully," he said. "There is no majority here, there are two halves." The Venezuelan government has agreed to an audit of the electronic counting system, but it has rejected calls for a manual recount, the BBC reports. A White House spokesman says an audit of results appears to be an "important, prudent, and necessary step.'

An opposition supporter bangs during a protest in Caracas, Venezuela, last night.
(AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

Demonstrators shout slogans against the government and the official election results in the Altamira neighborhood of Caracas, Venezuela.
(AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

What can we possibly say about this if we gave the world the Florida mess in 2000. In Florida, the election officials were working with the state GOP to dump ballots from liberal cities, they made it more difficult for people in liberal cities to vote, then the GOP secretary of state validated the results which made the results official without the ability of a recount. Then the GOP state supreme court refused to allow a recount or to overturn the results, then the GOP-led US supreme court did the same, all in the end conspiring to steal the election for G W Bush. This is exactly what is happening in Venezuela so we might have actually taught them how to do this.

Schizoid

Apr 16, 2013 8:03 AM CDT

The goverment did everything to avoid ever making the recount, severeal radical chavista groups like the tupamaros where going to voting centers to scare people from entering the audits and many boxes with ballots has been already destroyed even after one of the directors of the CNE recommended the recount just 5 minutes after the results where announced. The data has been damaged beyond repair and the lectronic votes could be anything the goverment wants and like always we cant do anything besides hit our kitchen hardwares

cornelison

Apr 16, 2013 5:10 AM CDT

This could possibly be the USA if the corporate class completely shuts down the middle class.

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